In Magic: the Gathering's latest expansion, Khans of Tarkir, five clans are at war in a landscape littered with the bones of now extinct dragons and stalked by a solemn vampire seeking clues to a greater mystery. Here is some of the gorgeous art from the new cards.

Tarkir is the home plane of Sarkhan Vol, a planeswalker who went insane. The vampire Sorin Markov shows up as well, looking for the mysterious planeswalker named Ugin, who has a strong connection to the cosmic beings known as the Eldrazi.

All the cards in Khans are divided into the five clans, each of which reveres an aspect of dragons. Each clan is made up of a three-color combination, and without going too deep into Magic history, it's the final batch color groupings to be featured (almost — the four-color groupings only have a single card each). A mighty Khan leads each clan: Jeskai, Mardu, Temur, Sultai, and Abzan.

Khans is also notable for featuring reprints (with new art) of the original five "fetch lands." These are lands that can be sacrificed to search your library for one of two basic land types. It's a bit difficult to explain briefly why fetch lands are such a big deal, but their utility and relative rareness had made their prices go pretty bonkers in the last few years, some of them fetching almost $100. The reprints will make them much easier to acquire.

The setting of Khans is interesting, a weird blend of Mongol barbarian hordes, Cossacks, Dothraki, and some mystic martial arts thrown in for good measure. It's hard to judge how good a set will be in terms of raw power — the last tri-color block, Alara, yielded some impressive deck archetypes, including the nearly unbeatable Jund. If nothing else, Khans has a lot to offer more casual players, especially for your multi-color Commander decks.

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Check out this gallery of Khans of Tarkir art, including Flooded Strand, top image, by Andreas Rocha.